


The River Runs Again

by WhiskyNotTea



Series: Whisky's Other Outlander Tales [1]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2019-06-09 21:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskyNotTea/pseuds/WhiskyNotTea
Summary: Murtagh & Jocasta meet for the first time in the new world.





	1. Chapter 1

He was free.

After so many years with his life chained to another man’s fate, Murtagh was free again.

He finally owned his name, the name of the man he used to be. He finally looked in the mirror and saw himself. Not another man’s servant. Not a pawn in another man’s chess game.

From the moment he stepped foot in this new world, Murtagh had been owned.

He had belonged to others before, having given himself in love willingly. Had trusted them to own his body and spirit. As an indentured servant, his body was given without his permission. He had been torn from his land, his people, for the crime of fiercely defending the things he loved.

Murtagh would rather have died in his godson’s arms, owned by love in that godforsaken prison, than to be forced to leave Scotland forever.

But he hadn’t.

From the moment he started working on that plantation, the only thoughts that occupied his mind consisted of survival and finding his lad again.

_Where had they taken him?_

The same question, repeating itself over and over again for more than a decade. Eleven years of pain, that eventually had come to an end.

Murtagh was finally standing in that strange land he’d been forcibly removed to as a free man, smelling the sage in the air for the first time. Staring up at the sky and realizing how bright the sun could actually be. Looking out at the mountains in the distance.  _Oh, the mountains._

In the years he hadn’t belonged to himself, his senses had been dulled. His plans were postponed. His thoughts suspended in the air, floating around him, waiting for him to close his eyes so they could sneak into his dreams. Sometimes they were nightmares, but most of the time they were memories, good memories, of a family, big and braw and joyful.

It was when he was free again, that he could finally chase those smiles and catch them between his fingers. He could breathe them in and let them fill his heart. He could feel again.

He left the plantation house with his indenture papers in hand and no money to his name, but bless his feet, he could still walk. He could still use his calloused hands to earn what he needed.

And what he needed was coin to be able to send word to Lallybroch. To find out what had happened. How Jenny and Ian were. The bairns. Where Jamie was.

It was pure luck he met John Quincy Myers. They shared bearded faces and a love for the mountains. Once they were a few drams in, they realized they shared a bit more than that. They had common acquaintances.

That was how Murtagh heard that Jocasta Cameron was there. That she had lived in North Carolina for the past twenty years.

The first time he’d met her, she was Jocasta Isobeail MacKenzie, the youngest of the MacKenzie children. He saw her once at Leoch and then never again, the night Brian snuck away with Ellen. 

Jocasta had been just a child back then. She had Ellen’s grace and fair skin, but her eyes were blue and vibrant in contrast with her sister’s grey, dreamy ones.

Murtagh had heard her name again, a cold January night, before fighting in Blàr na h-Eaglaise Brice. Dougal had told him that his little sister’s third husband, Hector mor Cameron, was with them, supporting the Rising. Cameron had money, and they drank to the good news, to that fragment of hope bringing victory to their side. But Cameron supported the Rising from afar, it seemed, because Murtagh never saw him or his money reaching Culloden. He never saw him fighting in that cursed field, full of blood and shattered dreams.

Jocasta and Hector Cameron hadn’t crossed his thoughts since then. Never, until he met Myers. The man told him that the couple had fled to the colonies just after Culloden. They’d taken up residence near Cross Creek he said, built a thriving plantation from the ground up.

_River Run._

And here he was, about to mingle wi’ the MacKenzies once more. Jocasta Isoebeail MacKenzie Cameron. A widow, for the third time in her life.

Murtagh’s feet moved towards the big house, impatient and eager. If Jamie had been sent to the colonies, maybe she’d know where he was. Maybe she had received news of him. And even if she hadn’t, Jocasta could help him send a letter to Jenny.

He needed information to begin his search for the lad.

Murtagh was so distracted by his own thoughts, that he had walked the entire expanse of the gardens and was close to the porch when he raised his eyes up from his feet and caught his first glimpse of her.

_Ah Dhia, she was breathtaking._

She must have seen five and sixty years now, but her tall frame stood proud and invincible, daring time to touch her.

She had something of Ellen, he reckoned. A silent power, a strength that ran through the MacKenzie blood, but it was smooth in those women, and it came strolling around his body, embracing him in welcome and intimidation all at once.

“May I help you, sir?” A man’s voice startled him and Murtagh turned his face to see him. A slave, his stature proud and dress formal.

“Aye, lad. I’m looking for Jocasta Cameron,” he said, as he looked back towards her. He couldn’t keep his eyes from her for long it seemed.

_What’s wrong wi’ ye man? Aren’t ye too old for this?_

And yet, he wasn’t.

He followed the man wi’ the strange name he’d barely heard to the porch, and watched her slowly turn around to face them, her voice low when she asked who their guest was.

She didn’t meet his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that in fact, she couldn’t. Her gaze was lost in the years that had passed, in the loss and pain that didn’t dare to touch her beautiful face.

_We all pay our debts to time, one way or another._

Yet, Jocasta Cameron stood confident between the flowers on her porch, her emerald dress flowing with the wind, the fabric dancing around a basket with balls of yarn at her feet.

The servant announced him, and in the sound of his name Murtagh hurried to add, somewhat shakily, “Ye willna remember me, I suppose.”

It was then that she smiled. It was in that moment of perfect serenity, that his heart banged against his old rib cage, with a force he didn’t know it still had.

“Of course I remember you, Murtagh FitzGibbons Fraser,” she said, her voice more melodic than the river running across her land. “Ye and Brian made quite a name for yerselves all those years ago at Leoch.”

At that he laughed, remembering the two young lads and the rebellious Ellen Fraser, leaving the castle at night, driven by their loud hearts.

“Was she happy?” she asked, and her voice was carried on the leaves, trembling slightly under the wind’s will, searching for her sister.

He wasn’t ready to talk about Ellen. He would never be ready. When he finally opened his mouth, his throat was dry and his eyes were looking into a different era, one where the people he loved still lived, one where he had friends and life companions.

“Aye, she was,” he said in an affirmative tone, the image of Ellen Fraser at Lallybroch’s front door with her three children around her skirts blurring his vision.

“Good,” Jocasta replied, trained by now to recognize how the truth rang in people’s words. She smiled at him again, that lopsided smile he’d seen on her nephew’s face all too often, and raised a hand pointing at the door of the house. “Welcome to my home then, old friend.”


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up in exactly the same way every day this last week. He felt his chest expanding with a breath, his mind still wandering between sleep and consciousness, the very soul of him shaking with surprise.

His nostrils flared with a breath that held the scent of clean sheets and he couldn’t take enough air in. When he’d left the plantation where he’d spent so many years of his life with no choice but to obey, he had wandered through the mountains, and the herbs and pines had smelled like freedom. But this,  _this_ , the scent of a house open to him – this smelled like home. Even after a week of sleeping and waking on the same soft mattress with the crisp white sheets that felt too good for him, the first breath he took nearly jolted him awake, fearful that it had all been a dream and it would gradually fade away.

Murtagh popped his eyes open, wide, taking in his surroundings.

There was the four-poster bed, the big window framed by soft velvet curtains, the flowers Phaedre carefully set in the ornate green vase by the window every two days. Everything was beautiful, surrounding him with indifferent finesse. They reminded him of Jocasta.

_Did beauty always make its proprietors gaze down at the rest with this dispassionate grace?_

Once he was reassured that this place was real, Murtagh felt the heartbeat inside his chest speeding up at the thought of hopping down the stairs and seeing her.

_Hopping down_  – that was ridiculous for a man in his age, surely.

The derogatory grumble that left his throat was accompanied by a shake of his head, and Murtagh quickly washed his face and got dressed. To wear a Cameron’s clothes was a disgrace, especially  _Hector_  Cameron’s, a coward who’d fled from the battle, never fighting for his country and his family. Murtagh had denied Jocasta’s offer to take her late husband’s clothes at first, mumbling he didn’t need them – even though his clothes had been ragged after his long journey. He had suspected her trusted servant Ulysses promptly informed her about the state in which her kinship had arrived at the estate, and she had probably found it unacceptable.

Murtagh didn’t need her pity, and what he needed even less was the almost-traitor’s clothes.

But Jocasta MacKenzie Cameron was not one who’d give up easily once she set her mind on something. She had insisted that the offer stood, and in a stern and emotionless voice she had stated that he would deeply wound and offend her if he wouldn’t accept her hospitality. Murtagh hadn’t been sure if she meant those words or had just used her MacKenzie cunningness to get her way. With a snort, loud enough for her to hear, he had complied, bid her goodnight, and almost missed the smug smirk on her mouth. Almost.

It had been that smirk that sent his heart bumping in his chest. His old, tired heart, forgotten for years.

Murtagh didn’t hop down the stairs, but his steps got faster as he approached the dining room.

She was already there, sitting with her back straight against the chair, her grey hair carefully pinned on her head, the rich fabric of her dress making her look grand and honorable.

“Good morning,” he said, and his torso bent in a slight bow even though he knew she couldn’t see him.

She smiled, her hands momentarily pausing from spreading butter on her oatcake. “Good morning, Murtagh. Did ye sleep well?”

“Aye, very well, thank ye.” It was the truth, but it shocked him when he heard the words echoing in the big room. He hadn’t slept well in so long, used to the few hours sleep he could get while indentured, that he hadn’t realised he had slept like the dead every night since he arrived at Jocasta’s estate.

When he collected his wits, he sat in the chair next to hers, and reached for his cup to fill it with tea. They fell into a light conversation after that, as they had done every morning. After talking about Ellen and Brian, Culloden, and their lives after the Rising that first day Murtagh had arrived at the estate, they silently agreed not to mention anything about the past. The wounds were one too many, and time – as good a healer as it was – left the flesh exposed and sensitive, ready to tear open again. Especially when people had tempers such as theirs.

Even a week later from that first day, they still trod with care, unsure of what to say but determined to get to know each other. They had something to connect them – the love of the same person that makes strangers familiar in the most peculiar way. An invisible line, and they both wanted to hold on it, but they were afraid it would snap with the smallest amount of tension between them.

Murtagh found that he spent most of the time during meals studying her, taking full advantage of her poor sight to look at her without her knowing how long his gaze lingered on her face. The first days, the only thing he could think of was how much she looked like Ellen; the long neck, the straight nose, the fair skin. It pained him to know that Ellen’s hair never grew white, the wrinkles on her face never deepened, endowing her wisdom.  

But Jocasta wasn’t Ellen, and he came to appreciate the differences between the two sisters. Jocasta spoke in a low voice that held authority where Ellen’s would have danced with kindness. Jocasta’s gaze wandered, but wasn’t lost. She looked like she could move the world with a flip of her hand. She challenged him. He felt powerful every time he made her laugh, as if he managed to break one of her rules for soberness and it only made him want to hear this rare sound as often as he could. The time he spent with her was the best part of his day.

Murtagh didn’t have a place at River Run, and his hands itched to do something, to help, to work. But she had informed him that he was her guest, and she had everything under control. “Take time to rest,” she said, but Murtagh had never learned how to rest. He left the dining room right after she had, and walked into the parlour so he wouldn’t be in the midst of the servants cleaning the table.

He had written to Jenny, first thing when he’d arrived. He needed to know how the lass and her family was. He knew what struggle it had been to survive in Scotland after the Rising. And with so many mouths to feed… Jenny and Ian had faced the cruel reality of being at the losing side, even though they weren’t held in a prison. But Murtagh’s heart ached for news of his godson, too. Jenny would know where he’d been. He might be at Lallybroch, too, now. Pardoned, finally free.

And alone. The lad had been heartbroken back in Ardsmuir. He couldn’t even talk about Claire, about his child.  _Ah Dhia_ , Jamie’s child. How old would the lad be now?

Tears ran from Murtagh’s eyes, and he let them roll down his cheeks, grateful that no one else was around to witness an old man break. He hadn’t cried in years, refusing to accept that he could still feel, that emotions would spring from a heart ragged as his.

But he was secure and safe now, in Jocasta’s home. He cried for himself, for the ones he loved, for everything that dreadful battle at Culloden had cost him. He cried for being free and helpless, for not being enough to protect them all, for being taken away from them. He cried for breaking his promise to Ellen.

“Hush,  _mo chridhe_ ,” she said, her voice as soft as the breeze that wafted in from the window. Before he had time to startle at her presence and the endearment, her small hands settled on his shoulders. “Ye’re not alone anymore.”

Murtagh nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Placing a rough, calloused hand on top of hers on his shoulder, he raised his eyes to look out the window, wishing with all his heart the ones he loved wouldn’t be alone, either.


End file.
